


the clock just makes the colours turn to grey

by endoftheline7



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bucky Barnes Recovering, Canon Compliant, Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Spoilers, Fix-It, Growing Up, Implied/Referenced Torture, Internalized Homophobia, Jealousy, M/M, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Oblivious Steve, Period-Typical Homophobia, mentions of Bucky/others, mentions of steve/others, pining Bucky
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-06
Updated: 2016-05-06
Packaged: 2018-06-06 19:53:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6767626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/endoftheline7/pseuds/endoftheline7
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky Barnes knows far too much of tragedy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the clock just makes the colours turn to grey

**Author's Note:**

> This covers pretty much pre-canon up to post-civil war so there are a few sections with the winter soldier. I wouldn't say the depictions of torture/violence are graphic, but they are there. it's more flowery than intense because that's just the way i write but if any descriptions of what bucky went through might trigger you then you should probably know now.
> 
> also there is a l o t of internalised homophobia. it's really shitty i'm sorry but that's just personally the way i interpret pre-tws bucky's feelings for steve. this isn't something you can skip past i'm afraid so i'd recommend not reading if this is something that especially upsets you.

_I love you._

He wants to confess it, finally, to whisper it into the dark. But his tongue is dry and heavy like sandpaper in his mouth, and he wonders if it's something Hydra put in his head that's preventing him from speaking the words or if he's still just that much of a coward. Bucky Barnes, the coward who kept his secrets locked in his concealed heart, the heart that he has used to love himself raw.

 _I love you,_ he thinks, but the words don't form.

“Goodnight,” is what comes out instead.

Steve sleeps on, unaware.

 

* * *

  
Bucky Barnes is six years old, and he meets Steve Rogers.

He meets Steve Rogers in the way that most of their meetings will one day turn out to be: explosive and all of a sudden.

James never could resist a challenge, and when he sees three boys beating on some tiny nobody who scrambles to his feet every time he takes a hit, James just has to intervene. Strides over there all tough and strong and decks the biggest one in the nose, takes him by surprise. They scamper pretty quick after that.

“I coulda handled it _myself_ ,” the nobody says, and it almost makes James laugh at this scrawny kid who for some reason thinks he's strong enough to beat off three school bullies all by himself.

But he doesn't laugh.

There is something about him, this kid, with his hair like straw and lips as red as cherries; wet with blood. Something about this kid that tried to take on three kids bigger than him, all by himself. This kid that seems too small for his body, clothes hanging off him and fragile wrists almost too tiny and skinny to support his fists, which are clenched by his sides in undiluted rage. And it doesn't make James want to laugh.

The something, whatever it is, it tugs at him. Right in the heart. Makes his fingers tingle and his toes curl inside his shoes that have been battered by gravel and asphalt. James has a short temper, however, always has done. And the chagrin he feels at the kid's ungratefulness is stronger than any phantom respect or curiosity he experiences.

“You should be _thankin_ _'_ me!” He exclaims. Does this kid own a _mirror?_ Did he think he actually stood a _chance?_

“I had 'em on the ropes,” he insists, and _now_ James laughs.

 _Sweet kid,_ he thinks. Sweet, how he genuinely seems to think he's capable of beating up the biggest guys in first grade. He obviously doesn't mean it to be funny, but it makes James laugh nonetheless, and the kid glares at him, brow furrowing and lips shifting into a pout.

James _likes_ this kid.

“James Buchanan Barnes,” he says in lieu of an introduction, holding his hand out. “I'm _six_ ,” he announces proudly.

The kid wrinkles his nose at him, looking down at his hand like its offended him in some way. He jerks his chin up to glare at James, pale blue eyes all fire and defiance, bloody mouth set in a stern line. “What's that for?”

“You shake it,” James explains, wiggling his fingers expectantly, vaguely noting flecks of green in blue eyes and blades of grass caught in golden hair. His heart rises in his throat. “Means we're friends.”

“You makin' fun of me?” The kid asks, suspicious, eyes narrowing.

“Why would I do that?”

“Dunno,” the kid admits, ears going pink. “Nobody's wanted to be my friend before.”

James feels a surge of something inside himself, something indignant and confused. This kid is _funny_. Brave. Sweet. Why _wouldn't_ anyone want to be friends with him? It just makes up James' mind even more, and he gives his fingers another pointed wiggle, leveling his gaze at the kid's face, which is bound to become mottled with bruises soon enough. _James_ will be his friend.

“Well _I_ do,” he assures.

“Oh.” The kid seems to relax, tense posture deflating, and it makes him even smaller than before. He frowns a little at James' hand, hesitant, but draws himself up proudly at the offer, sucking in a huge breath. “Steve Rogers,” he reveals, stretching his hand out and placing it in James'. His hand is small and bony, delicate like a dame's in James' palm, but rough and slick with scars and blood.

_Steve Rogers._

His stomach gives a jolt, igniting a resolute determination that he feels right from the crown of his head to the tips of his toes. _Steve Rogers is my friend,_ he thinks, and grins toothily at the small boy, dropping his hand. He doesn't fully understand it yet, but this is a commitment that he intends to keep for a very long time. Forever, perhaps.

He tries the name with his tongue. It tastes like victory. It tastes like survival.

It tastes like home.

 

* * *

 

Bucky Barnes is ten years old, and he loves Steve Rogers.

Not like he loves his Ma or Becca or Steve's Ma, but he _loves_ Steve, loves him like he's his favourite toy, or the slingshot he'd carried everywhere as a kid, or that pair of shoes with holes in that he's worn to death. Steve is _his_. _His_ best friend. _His_ Steve. It is slightly terrifying, the wave of possessiveness and loyalty he feels rush over him when he even so much as glances at Steve, seeing flashes of gold or pink from the corner of his eyes, but he doesn't let it worry him. He is a child, after all. And he loves Steve in the way only children _can_ love.

Unconditionally, effortlessly, and with complete abandon.

It is a truth he has yet to accept.

“ _God_ , Stevie,” he whines, the sun glaring hot and heavy through the window, forming beads of sweat that run down his spine. “You _hafta_ get better soon! School is so _boring_ without you! You gotta get back on your feet!”

“I'll try,” Steve promises with a weak smile, _already_  trying _,_ even in this condition, and Bucky softens.

“Nah, s'alright. Don't strain yourself.”

He ignores the urge to hop off the sill and climb in beside Steve, where he's lying in his bed, small and pale in the afternoon sunlight. It'd been okay when they were younger, but it's _different_ now. Ma told him boys shouldn't be sleeping in the same bed. Ma told him it was wrong. So he digs his heels into the ground and stays exactly where he is, baking in the heat and as far away as possible from Steve.

“Thanks, Buck,” comes the whispered reply, Steve's familiar voice shaping around the syllables of his nickname, and it makes Bucky's insides squirm for reasons that aren't entirely clear to him yet.

James had become Bucky not six weeks after they'd met. It was during the period of his life where he'd thought being addressed by his full name made him sound grown up, but Steve's recent lost teeth at the time had warped his pronunciation of Bucky's middle name, and so James Buchanan Barnes had become James Bucky Barnes, and then just Bucky. It had caught on, surprisingly. But _Steve_ was the one to call him it first. Bucky won't forget that.

“Just get better, pal,” he murmurs, and gets to see Steve smile again, the sickly pallor of his face momentarily brightened by his ever-rosy lips, stretching into a smile that plumps his cheeks only slightly.

Bucky's heart does cartwheels in his chest, not unlike it used to when Mary-Ellen beamed at him from across the schoolyard in third grade, and he chokes down the emotions climbing up his throat and threatening to strangle him. This is a regular occurrence around Steve, and he's used to it now- feeling like he's gonna throw up or trip over or do something as equally stupid. He doesn't know what it means. He doesn't think it's a good thing.

“Anyway, your Ma told me I can't stay long. That you gotta get rest, or somethin',” he mumbles, struggling for something to say just so the silences between them don't cause him to get all jittery again, actually hoping for an excuse to leave and escape the awkwardness. He hates it when he gets like this around Steve, all dizzy and fidgety, feeling awkward with his _best friend_ , someone who he should supposedly feel at ease with.

“Yeah, she said. But c'mon, stay a little longer,” Steve begs, and Bucky is torn. He kinda wants to leave, as seeing Stevie so out of sorts always upsets him, and especially now as he's feeling so nervous and uncomfortable himself. Maybe Steve passed something on to him, and it's making him ill too. “Please?” Steve asks, lower lip jutting out into a pout.

Bucky clears his throat. “Sure I'll stay,” he agrees, and gives in, climbing off the sill and approaching the bed. He can't deny Steve anything, and his body starts moving before he can even register it. “I'll stay no matter what. You know that.”

“No matter what?” Steve asks, half-joking and half-not. Bucky feels a stab of irritation at his insecurity, a sting of protective fury towards anyone whoever made Stevie worry like this.

“Yeah. 'Til the end of the line, pal.”

He does not know where the words come from. Some place deep inside of him, probably, some dark hole where he stores and tends to his love for Steve, where he should be trying to control it but is instead letting it fester and grow, building up into something Bucky isn't sure he should be feeling. But Steve, frail and slight in his arms, makes all of it unimportant. The feel of an uneven heartbeat, irregular but _there_ , beating under his palm, makes him stop listening. Steve is _alive_. Nothing else matters but them.

 _This is not right_ , his brain screams, _t_ _his is sin._

Bucky Barnes does not understand _why_ , exactly, but he is a sinner.

He wants to ask God: why does sinning feel so good?

 

* * *

 

Bucky Barnes is fourteen years old, and he is in love with Steve Rogers.

It hit him, one day. Out of nowhere. He'd dragged Steve on the Cyclone, and he'd been enjoying it at _first_ , pretty mouth open with laughter and sun glinting off the yellow of his hair and the blue of his eyes. And Bucky had looked over. And known.

Steve Rogers is his sin.

His big, ugly, terrifying sin. It's _Steve Rogers_. Little Steve Rogers, who makes Bucky laugh after his Ma shouts at him and draws him pictures whenever he asks and holds Bucky's hand under the covers when he stays over, is his _sin._ Sure, he's not perfect- gets into stupid fights that make Bucky worry himself sick, has a short temper that gets him into all sorts of trouble- but he isn't _this_. He doesn't deserve this. To be tainted and condemned by Bucky's love for him.

Bucky doesn't _want_ to love him.

He cannot love the way children do any longer. He does not love with abandon, but rather with caution. He kisses girls in the schoolyard and pretends to Steve and anybody else who can hear that he wants them, with their soft curves and long hair, but when he gets his hands on himself at night ( _another sin, his mind reminds_ ) it is _Steve_ he thinks about, all sharp bones and pale skin, and pretty, _pretty_ red lips, wet with blood.

He may not want to love him, but he loves him nonetheless. Zones out in class with a dreamy smile because he's too busy staring at the back of Steve's head, imagining winding his fingers into the hair there. Grows sullen when Steve trips over his words around girls, staring down at his scuffed shoes and burning with envy. Trips over his _own_ words whenever they're alone together, goosebumps breaking out on his skin and cheeks turning hot with nerves.

Stevie doesn't know. He can't know.

Can't know how Bucky's eyes track his every move, at how he occupies Bucky's every waking thought and even his asleep ones, sometimes, the ones that make Bucky wake up sticky and sad, longing for them to be real. Steve can't know that Bucky thinks about him in the way he does, thinks about the curve of his spine when he stretches and the curl of his fingers around a pencil, thinks about what he looks like under his shorts. Can't know that Bucky once beat Eddie Morris so hard that he thought he'd killed him, just for shoving at Steve in the schoolyard and giving him a black eye. That he hates Dotty Adler even more with each kiss they share, hates her for her too-dark hair and too-dark eyes, despises her bland pale lips and the fat on her fingers. That his heart aches if Steve ever puts the couch cushions on the floor instead of curling up beside him in the bed, that Bucky yearns for his long-lost ignorance, wants to be able to love Steve without qualms once more.

He can't know. _Nobody_ can know.

“You okay, Buck?” Steve asks from where he's stretched out on the floor, pausing his scribbling in his tatty old sketchbook.

“M'fine. Just lost in thought, I guess.”

 _Lost in you._ God, he sounds like he's straight out of a romance novel sometimes. At least he doesn't say it out loud.

Steve laughs; it's short and sharp and the most gorgeous sound in the universe. “That's a change,” he says. “Usually you got _somethin'_ to say.”

“You shut your damn mouth, Rogers,” he warns, and it provokes another laugh from Steve, warming Bucky's insides.

“Love you too, Barnes,” Steve teases, and oh god, the poor boy isn't aware of what it does to Bucky. He looks away from Steve and his grinning face, trying not to focus on the sick, swirling mix of want churning in his stomach.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” he mumbles, hoping his voice doesn't crack. “Get on with your drawing.”

“Nah, it ain't goin' so well,” Steve says, and jumps up from where he's lying to land on the couch next to Bucky, pressing against him from shoulder to thigh. “Budge up, Buck.”

“Sure,” he agrees, trying to keep his voice even while he's falling to pieces inside. Stevie pressed so close, the smell of laundry detergent on his thin t-shirt and the scent of shampoo in his golden hair, the sight of charcoal on his fingertips and the feel of heat seeping from his body, it makes Bucky giddy. Drunk on the mere existence of Steve Rogers, sick with want and love, high on long fingers and pretty hair.

He is in love. Terribly so. And it is wrong. _He_ is wrong- he doesn't deserve this boy, doesn't deserve to love him. Doesn't deserve to sit next to Steve stewing in sin and lust and longing while he babbles on about some insignificant thing like girls or school or homework, unaware of Bucky's affections. He resigns himself to silence and secrecy so often that sometimes he can't help but reconsider, can't help but indulge himself with wondering.

He could say it. Interrupt him. Just get it out. _I'm sweet on you Stevie,_ he'd say, _abso-fucking-lutely gone on you,_ and Steve would be disgusted but he'd hide it, because that boy truly is too good, and he'd let Bucky cry into his chest like he always does when Bucky's sad. _It's okay, Buck,_ he'd say, _you just gotta confess your sins_ _in Church_ , and Bucky _would_ , he'd do it for Steve, but it wouldn't mean a damn thing and he would still love so terribly much, but then Steve would _know_. So he picks this: keeping his mouth shut and hanging on Steve's every word, pretending not to gaze at the way his mouth moves.

He stays broken and sinning and wanting, a broken Brooklyn boy with a broken heart, loving himself into the grave. This will kill him. He is sure of it. His utter adoration for Steve Rogers will be the death of him, whether it's God that smites him down or the ache that eventually consumes him, he knows that's how he's gonna go.

But then again, what would Bucky rather see in his dying moments? A blank white slate followed by burning hell-fire? Or would he want it to be Steve, kindness in his soft eyes and a smile on his bloody lips?

Loving Steve Rogers is an honour just as much as a sin, and Bucky bears it willingly.

 

* * *

 

Bucky Barnes is eighteen years old, and he wants Steve Rogers.

Wants him with such force he scares himself sometimes. He should be able to live with it now, live with his love and his want and his sin- it's been years, after all. Half a dozen years since they rode the fucking Cyclone and Bucky fell head over heels in love with his best friend. He should be able to bear it but he _can't_. Can't take it when Steve looks at girls who look at Bucky who looks at Steve. It's a cycle that he can't seem to shake, that he _could_ shake if he just told Steve he was sweet on him, but that would mean rejection and awkwardness and hidden hatred.

So instead he keeps it up, this façade, the mask of platonic feelings he wears all day, only to have it ripped to shreds every night when he slides into bed next to Steve, lovesick and wanting. The disguise of nonchalance. It works every time, easily conceals the lonely aching he feels inside, which rears its wicked head as soon as Steve begins to snore.

 _Bucky Barnes is a queer_ , he thinks, he _knows_ , and goes with dames anyway. Dates girls that are real short and real pretty, all blonde hair and blue eyes, works his hands up beneath their skirts and loses himself between their legs, all the while thinking about mapping the shape of his best friend's ribcage with his tongue. Those dames aren't _right_ ; their hair too silky, their eyes too bright, their lipstick always too red or not red enough.

So he makes compromises. Lies to Steve about only being able to afford one bed so he can fuck these skinny blonde dames while biting his tongue and come home to Steve beside him, tells the guys at work about his beautiful girl with her cherry-red mouth and quick wit, tells his Ma that Steve needs him ( _no really, he's still broken up about his own Ma, he needs me, he needs me_ _(_ _I need him_ )) so they can live together without suspicion. He fantasises about Steve in the morning and in the afternoon and in the night, while he's with dames and while he's at work and while he's on his own, during breakfast and lunch and supper; want, want, want, like clockwork.

He wants so much his hands ache when they're together. Steve, so close, yet still untouchable. Except he's _not_ , is he? Bucky can put an arm around him or brush past his hand or press their thighs together and Steve won't think a damn thing about it. So Bucky does just that: takes what he can get. Makes himself remember just how lucky he is to see Steve at _all_ , let alone the prettiest but tiny details up close, like his split knuckles and pointy elbows and bitten fingernails.

 _They_ don't notice that. The rude dames that Bucky sets Steve up with and ardently assures to him weren't like that before (they were). Or even the nice ones that Steve meets all on his own and Bucky never gets to see. _They_ don't get woken up by Steve's elbows in the middle of the night and love him in spite of that. He can't fucking stand it when it happens, when Steve trudges home late smelling of alcohol and flowery perfume. It sets his blood on fire at first, makes him grumpy and snappy with Steve until they finally retire to bed, where he waits for Steve to drift off before crying himself to sleep, waking up in a puddle of tears and fresh heartbreak. He despises all of these faceless girls, and they taunt him in his dreams with their painted lips and coiffed hair, flaunting _his_ Stevie on their smooth, unblemished arms.

Is he obvious? He's sure he is. But he'd be on the streets now if people had figured it out, bruised and shunned and disowned. Beautiful Bucky Barnes, bold Bucky Barnes: he's a queer, you see. If only they knew.

“So whaddaya think? You think she's the one, Buck?” Stevie asks, after Bucky's been on his eighth date with Sue-Ann, the girl who recently moved in down the street. This is his longest relationship yet.

It has nothing to do with her gender or her personality, and everything to do with her blonde hair and blue eyes and red lips, everything to do with her baby-face and tiny build. She's the closest one to Steve he's got yet.

“I dunno. No, probably not, Stevie,” he answers, and hears an exasperated groan from the kitchen.

"Then you're leading her on!” Steve berates, trudging into the bedroom and shucking off his clothes as he goes. Bucky tries not to look, staring down at the bump his knees make in the covers like he does every night, sneaking glances from beneath his eyelashes and gnawing on his lips when he sees expanses of fair skin and protruding bones. “If she ain't the one then why are you with her?”

“She's… I dunno. Pretty, I guess. A good lay,” he says, scrambling to find good qualities to mention, distracted by Steve pulling on his nightclothes. All he tends to remember from his dates with her are the way her eyelashes flutter against her cheeks, almost as long as Steve's, and the feel of her hand in his, too soft and too small.

Steve tuts, clambering in next to Bucky, who does his best not to jolt when their thighs brush through thin fabric. “Don't talk about her like that,” he chastises. “It ain't right.”

“Sorry. You're right. I gotta break up with her, it ain't fair.”

“You'll do it?” There is no urgency in his voice, only surprise. Bucky _wishes_ there were urgency, wishes he could interpret some kind of desperation or jealousy from Steve's voice, but no, it's just as even and ordinary as usual.

“Yeah, tomorrow.”

He doesn't want to break up with her. She's pretty and she looks like _him_ , and she doesn't seem to mind when Bucky rambles on about Stevie on their dates or spaces out during sex, imagining that the lips wrapped around his cock belong to someone else. But _Steve_ has asked him to, and that's all she wrote for Bucky. He can't deny him anything.

“Well done, Buck,” Steve whispers, and it's dark apart from the moon shining through their window and the words are spoken right near his ear and Bucky's imagined this a thousand times, and he has to shift away to make sure Steve doesn't feel him growing hard against his leg. He wishes their curtains were thicker, really, wishes he couldn't see the way the moonlight catches Steve's eyelashes and makes it look like his eyes are made from the stars.

“S'okay,” he murmurs, and falls asleep like he does every night living with Steve: half-hard with his heart breaking, cheek pressed against the pillow and hair mussed on Stevie's shoulder.

He tells her, the next day, all because Steve asked him to. Sits her down on a park bench and looks at her all sad. “I'm sorry, Sue-Ann,” is what he says. “I'm in love with my best friend, Sue-Ann,” is what he doesn't say, but she figures it out anyway.

“You love him, don't you?” She asks, and Bucky's heart jumps in his chest. “The boy you live with?”

It is pure and utter panic like Bucky has never experienced before. Nearing the kind of fear he feels whenever Steve gets sick. It is suffocating, immobilising. If she tells then Bucky's a dead man. Dead and gone, and then who would be there for Steve? His Ma, probably. Becca. But they don't love him like Bucky does, wouldn't easily and immediately drop everything, give _everything_ , just to have him safe. Bucky would saw off his own leg if it got him a smile.

“What are you talking about I-”

“It's okay. My brother he's… he's like you. He's...”

"A queer,” Bucky spits, self-loathing clutching at him again. “An invert.”

“I prefer the term homosexual,” she says, and he feels sick. “It's okay. I never really went in for the whole God thing, anyway. I ain't judging you.”

“But I… this whole time. I assumed you'd be madder.”

“I hear the way you talk about him,” she admits. “I just ignored it 'cause it gave me someone to spend my nights with. But I knew, really, deep down. I ain't mad.”

“You can't- you won't… tell anyone, right?” He asks, panic still there, grasping it's claws around his lungs and heart and anything it can touch.

“No! No, course not,” she assures, placing a hand over his kindly. “But you know, right? You ain't a bad person. You ain't evil.”

He isn't so sure about that.

But he thinks of Steve, with his golden hair and heart that matches. With his eyes like the sky and ever-bruised knuckles. He thinks of the broken skin on his lips that Bucky gets to see up close when he stitches him up after a fight. The translucence of his eyelashes when the sun shines through the window of their apartment. The shoulder-blades that spread across his back like the wings of a bird.

How can something so pure be such a sin to love?

 

* * *

 

Bucky Barnes is twenty-two years old, and he needs Steve Rogers.

He is at war. Not the war that has just broken out between Britain and Germany, but war with himself. It would be so easy to push Steve away, he knows. Beyond easy. He's aware that Steve's got some silly idea in his head about not being good enough for Bucky, so he'd believe it. He _should_ push Steve away. He causes Bucky so much pain, and so much misery. He causes Bucky so much sin.

But then… who would he spend rainy days with, lying on the floor and listening to the rain patter against the windowpane? Who would hang out on the fire escape with him during summer, observing unaware passer-bys below? Who would take care of Steve, take care of him when he's sick or after he's had a fight, and who would Bucky Barnes love, because it certainly wouldn't ever be himself, never himself.

 _Steve Rogers._ It is the name he wants burned inside his eyelids, the name he wants engraved on his tombstone. He wants the world to know, once he is dead. _I loved him,_ the engraving will read, _I loved him until my dying day_. He wants to push Steve away, he does, but he _can't_. Because he needs him. Needs him like he needs air to breathe. One day without seeing red lips and baby blues and he worries what he'll do.

“It's okay, Bucky, I'm fine,” Steve assures late in the winter of '39, as he's making his slow recovery from pneumonia, still unsteady on his feet. “You don't gotta wait on me hand and foot.”

“I don't want you to get sick again,” Bucky insists, taking the plates from Steve's hands.

“I ain't gonna get sick from holdin' some damn _plates_ , Barnes!” He snaps, and Bucky winces, dropping them on the counter. He knows how much Steve has always hated being babied, but he can't stop himself from being guilty from it, sometimes.

“I'm sorry, Stevie. I just….” He sighs, running a hand through greasy hair. He hasn't washed in _days_ , has been far too afraid to leave Steve's side, has been absolutely _beside_ himself with concern. He's never been a good Catholic himself, but he even called the _priest_ in at one point. _Do something_ , he'd begged, sinking to his knees with hands clasped together in prayer, and had alarmed the man with the sheer depth of his anguish. “You know how I worry 'bout you,” he whispers, aware that Steve probably doesn't remember most of it. But he should _know_ , he should _understand_.

“Well you don't hafta. I'm _fine_ ,” Steve reassures, annoyance building up, but Bucky isn't having it.

“You ain't _fine!_ You had pneumonia _yesterday_. Now sit down and shut up. Let me look after you,” he orders, reaching for Steve, but gets shoved away.

“Yeah, 'cause that's what you _always_ _do_ , ain't it? Bucky _fuckin'_ Barnes, lookin' out for Steve Rogers.” He takes a step back, surprised by Steve's vehemence. “Well what am _I_ good for? D'ya really think I'm _that_ incapable of takin' care of myself?”

“ _No!_ No, that ain't what this is about and you know it! I _love_ you, Stevie,” he says, and it's okay, they've said it before, but Bucky sometimes wonders if it's obvious he means it in the way he does. Always makes sure to mask the words with a layer of teasing camaraderie, but _now_... “You're my _best friend_. I _wanna_ take care of you.”

“ _Why?_ ” Steve shouts, and he's _trembling_. Shaking like a leaf in the wind, looks as if he's about to _cry_ , and Bucky's always fallen to pieces when Steve cries.

“Stevie, Stevie, hey,” he murmurs, crowding into Steve's personal space, cupping his cheek, which is soft and pink from sickness. “Why what? Why do I wanna take care of you?” Steve nods, jerking away from the tenderness of Bucky's embrace. “I… I dunno what I'd do without you, Steve,” he admits, and now he's tearing up, and _fuck_ , this is one of the reasons he always hates it when Steve gets sick. “You… I'd be a mess. You gotta help me out here. You gotta get better.”

“I just _hate_ it, Bucky,” Steve hisses helplessly, taking a step back and wrapping his arms around himself, tiny build made even smaller. “Feelin' so weak all the time. I wanna… I wanna be able to _do_ things.”

_Do things._

It clicks. And Bucky does his best not to explode.

“Is _that_ what this is about?” He asks, voice low, fists clenched and nails biting into his palm. There is a long pause that stretches between them, and his blood begins to boil. “The _war?_ You wanna enlist, don't you?” Steve doesn't reply, just looks at his feet guiltily. “ _Don't you?_ ” Bucky repeats, tone all fury and danger.

“Yes, Bucky. I do. I'm sorr-”

“ _Christ,_ Steve! It ain't even over here yet! And you're already thinkin' about enlisting? For fuck's _sake_ , what is _wrong_ with you? You got a fuckin' death wish if I ever saw one.”

“Buck, _please_ , I-”

“You don't even _think!_ Do you have any _idea_ what it would do to me if I lost you, which I sure as hell _would_ if you joined the goddamn army? _Do you?_ ”

“No,” Steve spits.

“It'd _kill me_ , Steve. I… I think I might die,” Bucky says, and it's mostly realisation, all the anger draining from his voice. “I would die,” he whispers, and he can't stand the way Steve's face is creasing in confusion and pity, so he turns away abruptly, striding over the room to grab his coat. “I'm goin' out,” he says, and hears an aborted reply that is muffled by the slam of the door.

He does go out that night, gets blackout drunk and fucks one of those skinny blonde dames into her mattress; holds her by her frail wrists and leaves scratches on her thighs. He cries silently into her shoulder, thanking God that she's distracted enough not to notice and hoping to the high heavens that her name rhymes with Steve. He imagines it's him, just like he always does: his brave little wannabe soldier. But Steve's face is so fresh in his mind and the smell of him is still lingering in his nostrils, and it makes him come quicker than he has since he was a teenager, thirteen years old and jerking off with his face pressed into the t-shirt his best friend left at his house, guilt weighing him down at the thought of facing him again. He gets home late, wandering down abandoned streets in the night air, smelling of sex and sorrow; tear tracks on his cheeks and sweat matted in his hair.

“You okay, Buck?” Steve asks when he enters the bedroom as quietly as he can.

“You're awake,” he states, not bothering to pull off his dirty clothes before climbing into bed.

“Yeah,” Steve says. “You okay?”

“No,” Bucky confesses, and his voice is cracking. He hates alcohol, sometimes. It puts his heart on display. Makes him weepy. “Please don't leave me.”

“ _Bucky._ ” Steve opens his arms and Bucky falls into them, letting out great, heaving sobs into Stevie's chest, just like he always does when he's sad. “I'm sorry,” he murmurs into Bucky's ear.

“I love you,” he says, and Steve is hushing him and rocking him and he doesn't know what Bucky _means_ , he'll never know what Bucky means, that Bucky means it like _love_ love, like that big scary love that he's only ever seen in movies or novels, that devotion that is so intrinsic to Bucky as a human being that it's like a second nature to him.

Steve doesn't know how special he is. How beautiful. How significant.

And he's willing to throw it all away to fight in something as inconsequential as a _war_.

Steve Rogers is far more important than a war.

 

* * *

 

Bucky Barnes is twenty-six years old, and he hasn't got Steve Rogers.

Not that he ever did, but now he doesn't stand a _chance_. He knows it, the minute he sees her. _Agent Carter,_ he discovers later. Steve is smitten, and Bucky knows it.

Now, Steve is by no means a virgin- Bucky knows that too. He'd always set Steve up with the _worst_ girls on their double dates, which wasn't fair, and it killed him to watch them ignore Steve, but still, Bucky's a selfish bastard who couldn't bear the thought of Steve touching anyone else, and this isn't exactly news. But Steve had always had the most _terrible_ habit of actually finding dames that were interested in him whenever Bucky wasn't involved, and once they'd started living together after Steve's Ma died, Bucky had to endure his stories about gorgeous redheads or tiny brunettes that danced through his life, seething and wallowing in thick jealousy.

But Steve had never loved any of them.

He'd taken them out on a few dates and decided whether he was gonna end up marrying them or not. If not, he refused to lead them on, and ended it as soon as possible. Bucky's put up with this silly moral code for years, but he'd quite honestly take that string of short-lived relationships over _this_ any day. Because the worst part about it? He's not allowed to hate her.

 _That Agent Carter's a firecracker,_ one of the guys tells him after they've first got back, and he looks over at her and can't disagree. She's stunning; lips much redder than Steve's, and rich, dark hair that curls around her pretty face. He wants to punch her. Can't help it- he knows it's not right, she's a beautiful dame who's done nothing to deserve it, but he wants to punch her nonetheless. If Steve marries this girl, he'll have to see her every day of his damn life. He won't be _allowed_ to hate her. He'll marry some clueless Steve look-alike or maybe even Sue-Ann if she still doesn't have anybody, and they'll have to live next to these two, and Bucky will waste away still loving Steve. It's not a life he looks forward to.

It gets even worse, later. The two of them, flirting, right in front of him. It feels like she's rubbing it in his face. _He's mine_ , she's saying, _he's mine and he's not yours, he was never yours, he'll never love you._ Steve doesn't see it, just gazes back at her lovingly, practically _melting_. _The right partner,_ she says when Bucky tries to distract her, and he feels sick and in love; so, so in love, and he tells Steve anyway:

“That little guy from Brooklyn who was too dumb not to run away from a fight. I'm following him,” he says. _'Til the end of the line,_ he thinks. He does not say it. But it is confirmation- he could see it, in Stevie's face. The fear. _Do you still want me?_ he was asking. _You're still you,_ was Bucky's reply, and he meant it. He knew it was Steve. Nobody could replace those eyes and that hair and those pretty, pretty lips. The smell of him, buried deep under the scent of sweat and ash- the smell of home. The feel of him, the way the air changed around him as if to say: _this is it, this is him, your love has returned to you._ Bucky knew. Will always know. He knows Steve Rogers like the second half of his soul, would know him anywhere, on the battlefield or in a scruffy little apartment in Brooklyn or seventy goddamn years in the future, and no amount of muscle or newfound popularity could  _ever_ change that.

They share a tent that night, and fall asleep holding each other, just like they have done every single night since Steve's Ma died and they scraped up enough savings to buy an apartment together. Even years in the future, Bucky will still refer to this as the hardest part of coming to terms with Steve's size- he is no longer cradling his precious little Stevie, but this towering giant of a human being, and he struggles to drift off, at first.

And when he eventually does, he is haunted.

It's early the next morning when _she_ corners him after a restless night of sleep, his nightmares taunted by the face of the man in glasses, nauseating and sinister as he cooed over him. She asks to borrow him for 'a few short moments' and leads him into a nearby tent, looking uncomfortable before she just comes right out and says it.

“Do you love him?” She asks, short and sharp, just like her. “Captain Rogers. Are you in love with him?”

“I don't know what you're talking about,” Bucky lies, a lie he has been perfecting since he was twelve years old in the bathroom mirror, and she sighs.

“I'm not blind, Sergeant Barnes. You may have fooled many a girl about your true proclivities, but I can assure you, I found it to be quite obvious. Now I'll ask you again, are you in love with him?”

“Are _you?”_

Carter huffs, looking away. “Men,” she says with a scoff, shaking her head. “Honestly? No. I don't know him well enough to love him.”

“But you could,” Bucky finishes for her, insides burning with envy and anger. Steve is _his_ to love. _His_. Has been his since he was six and still just as stupid, stupid for the beautiful little boy who needed rescuing. Who says that _she_ deserves him? “You _could_ love him. One day.”

“Yes,” she replies, seeming _guilty_ , of all things. “But I'm not… I knew him before, you know. Before the serum. And even then, I...”

“Oh.” Bucky considers her. He couldn't take it if Steve married some shallow and unintelligent bimbo who was only interested in money and looks. If this Agent Carter knew him before, _wanted_ him before, then she must understand better than most. Understand what it is to want Steve Rogers. “That's… not as bad, then. I guess.”

“Do you love him?” She asks again, softer, this time. Kind. “I'm not going to tell anyone. I'd just like to know for sure.”

“I can't...”

“It's alright, James.”

It chokes him. Nobody else has ever known, not really. Sue-Ann had figured it out, but Bucky rarely sees her anymore. Becca might've known, he thinks. Caught her shooting the strangest looks between him and Steve at Sunday dinners. But he has never admitted it, or said the words aloud. Just worried about other people's awareness or was complicit in their discovery, sin eating him up inside.

“Yeah, I- yeah. I love him,” he manages, and his heart crumbles even more. It still hurts, despite Bucky being accustomed to heartache. “Have done since I was about twelve. Probably earlier. But you can't tell him.”

“I won't,” she vows, and Bucky believes her. “Don't feel guilty, Sergeant Barnes. There's nothing wrong with love.”

“There's a whole lotta people that'd disagree with you, I'm afraid,” he says. The opinion of one or two people doesn't remove his guilt. “But you don't gotta worry. He doesn't feel the same. Stevie likes dames. Likes 'em real pretty and real smart. You're perfect for him, really. I won't interfere.”

“That's very kind of you, Bucky. Thank you. Although I wouldn't worry too much, I doubt there'll be much time allocated for romance between us. This is war, after all.” Bucky nods at her, and watches as she turns to leave. “I have that meeting with Mr. Stark that I should probably attend.”

“Yeah, yeah, sure. Just… do me a favour, okay? If… if I die.” She opens her mouth to interrupt, but he shakes his head at her. “If I die, which I might, okay? I ain't leaving Steve out here on his own. So I _could_ die. When you gotta go, you gotta go, I s'pose. If I _do_ … just tell him, will you? Tell him that I thought he was worth it.”

Her face softens in pity. “Of course,” she says. “What about your… feelings? Would you like him to know then?”

 _Yes_ , he thinks. “No,” he says. “No thanks.” She nods in understanding, and exits the tent, annoyingly graceful as she goes.

He might die. If he dies, Steve will inevitably blame himself. Bucky knows it. And if Steve found out that Bucky has wanted him this whole time, it would become even worse- he'd beat himself up for not dissuading Bucky earlier, kick himself for not convincing Bucky to go home when he was given the chance. Steve really should know, one day.

But he can't.

Never can. Especially now.

Because now Steve is Captain America. The realisation is a punch to the gut. All of this time, Bucky spent wanting and waiting for people to _look_ , to _really_ look, and see Steve Rogers for what he really is: a hero ( _his_ hero). But it took a shiny shield and a bunch of chorus-girls in short skirts for them to notice, and it's a fucking tragedy. Why wasn't he popular back when he had ink stains on his fingers and his clothes hung off him? Bucky was the one to love him then, will be the one to love him now, no matter what, because it's _Steve_. And Steve was pretty, _is_ pretty, but that isn't why Bucky loves him. Bucky loves him because of his bitter laugh and the curl of his accent that infects his voice. Bucky loves him because of his constantly bruised knuckles and bloody lips and the reasons behind them. Bucky has loved him through it all, through sweltering hot summers and brutally cold winters, through running down Brooklyn streets and lazy days on couches, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health and he will _continue_ to love him until death finally parts them. Which may very well be because of exactly this: his love for Steve.

He would be okay with it, he thinks, if it was just Captain America. Captain America, he could share with the world. Steve Rogers, however, is a different story. He doesn't want to share his Steve Rogers, not with this Agent Carter who really isn't so bad after all, not with the Howling Commandos, not with anyone. But he should have realised by now that while he belongs to Steve, has done since that gap-toothed five year old had shaken his hand, it doesn't go both ways.

Steve Rogers has never been his to share.

 

* * *

 

The Soldier is God knows how many years old, and he doesn't know Steve Rogers.

He aches. Aches all over. Outside and inside. The ache, it is all he knows.

( _Liar._ )

This is what he tells them, when they ask. The men. But he remembers, sometimes. They are always fragmented and faded, but they are there. The memories. They haunt him. And isn't that ironic? The ghost, haunted by his own memories. They are memories of death, of his hands slippery with blood and frozen with cold around the trigger of a gun.

( _Memories of charcoal on paper and hot summer days and lips, wet with blood._ )

The memories ache too. All of them. But like usual, they are taken away. And then that aches. It is aching in his head, mostly. But on occasion he'll feel it; a tingle in his fingertips that makes his hand twitch, convulsing around a strand of golden hair that isn't there or the shape of someone else's palm in his, that doesn't actually exist.

The Soldier remembers.

And then he doesn't.

( _Yellow and red and blue; he may dream in black and white but these are the colours he seeks on every mission, and he doesn't know why, tell him why._ )

Want is a foreign concept to him. He does not want. He follows orders, he does as told, or he is punished. Punishment means pain, and pain means losing more. He gets some of it back, eventually, but every time he is sat in the chair, the image of bloody knuckles and wrists he can fit his fingers around gets less clear. He does not know why he treasures them so, the pictures in his brain. But they are something different, something different to the beatings and the killing, something other than pain.

Want may be foreign, but he recalls it. A black hole inside him, not unlike starvation. It's like the feeling of blood pouring out between his fingers, and it just keeps coming and coming and coming, an endless supply. It's heady and it's painful. It's gone. He does not want-

( _-to forget. He does not want to forget. Purple rings around blue eyes and love, love so bright it burnt his eyes, love that was red and pretty and bloody, and Stevie, oh Stevie his darling boy._ )

-anymore. He does not feel want. He does not feel.

He does not remember.

There are faces. Are they in his head? He learns to differentiate. The faces that are pale and cold and pinched, they are real. They jeer and prod at him, shape him into their weapon. «солдат,» they say, and he listens. «готовы соблюдать?» they ask, and he answers affirmative. The faces that are lopsided and ashen, or frozen in fear, they are real. Usually accompanied by the sound of screaming or gunshots. “Please,” they beg him. “Don't kill me.” Perhaps in another life, in another world, he would listen. Would obey. Perhaps if he were a man rather than a monster. He completes the mission, and they go silent.

The faces that are bright and smiling, however, they are not real.

Because the Soldier, he dreams.

His dreams are black and white and tired, but they are filled with faces. The faces smile and laugh and look at him, but they are not hostile, or malicious, or scared. They are not empty. “Bucky,” they say, edges tinged with laughter and joy, and the Soldier does not know what they mean.

( _There is one face, just one, that always returns. It is all sharp angles and soft_ _skin_ _._ _Sometimes, just sometimes, the Soldier remembers what it is to love. What it is to love pretty smiles and long eyelashes and colours, oh, the colours._ _The colours of love and freedom and yearning._ )

Here are the words he must know: Тоска. Ржавый. Семнадцать. Рассвет. Печь. Девять. Доброкачественные. Возвращение Домой. Один. Грузовой. Автомобиль.

Here are the words he should not know: Bucky. Stevie. Summer. Lips. Yellow. Dream. Monster. God. Ache. Memory.

Love.

He is a soldier, he is _the_ Soldier, and he was never meant to know of love. He is meant to know of death and cold. Of winter. The way winter feels on his bare skin and chills him to the bone. This is likely why he dreams of summer.

This is likely why he dreams of love.

«Доклад миссии, солдат.»

 

* * *

  

The Soldier is God knows how many years old, and he owns Steve Rogers.

Steve Rogers is a concept.

A memory(?)

Barely even that.

The Soldier is not even sure it's a _name_ , just knows how his tongue can shape the words and his ears can hear the syllables. Steve Rogers is his. His to possess, because he will never say the words aloud, _never_ , for fear of the chair, for fear of _them_. But the Soldier has never owned anything before, nothing apart from his limbs and his gun and his killings. It is disorienting.

( _Never his, not his, people don't belong to you, you see. People flourish and grow while you wilt and die in the shadow of their light._ )

What do they mean, the words? He wants to ask. But he won't.

Not the chair again, please not the chair.

But the words lead to other words, words like _summer_ and _lips_ and _yello_ _w,_ which lead to more images and whispers that make his brain ache and his heart clench, for reasons still unknown. Images of a rosary wrapped like a noose around his fingers and the whisper of _father forgive me for I have loved._ Images of blood and sweat smeared across pale skin, washed away in one smooth stroke, and the whisper of _dear lord I am scared, take me before him._ Images of floppy hair and speckled cheeks and the whisper of _I am a sinner; I want._

The straps of his uniform tighten by the day, but the Soldier almost doesn't notice, almost doesn't register it. The Soldier doesn't remember a time when he didn't live with a band around his chest, constricting his breathing and heartbeat.

Then again, the Soldier doesn't remember a lot, these days.

( _Remember sinning and_ _sweating and smoking_ _?_ _The mundane things? The in-between bits, when his life was not defined by a boy who never noticed him looking?_ _They are still there._ _They exist._ _But they are not his._ )

They hit him. Shock him. Whip him.

But it is not the chair.

«Соответствуют, солдат!» they order, and he does. Does their missions and their murders, and does as he is told, because that is what he is good for, that is his purpose. That is what he was made for.

“Compliance will be rewarded,” one man says, the man with the blonde hair and cold eyes. “Well done, Soldier.”

He does not get put in the chair.

This is his reward.

( _Rewards used to be wide smiles and eyes focused entirely on him, used to be dames with the right colour hair and the right colour lips. Purpose used to be protect and defend_ _and don't let him see._ )

What has he become?

What was he, to become this?

What is becoming?

They hit him for it, for asking, and the Soldier grasps for his anchor. His mouth forms the words _Stevie_ and _Rogers_ and the cold-eyed man snarls in rage, knocking him from his feet, and into the chair. It closes around him like the reverse of flowers in the spring, a closing jail cell, a death sentence. “When you gotta go, you gotta go,” he says, voice a barren croak, and he does not know what he means. They are words from another century, words from another life. The men strap him down, vices embracing him around his wrists and biceps and waist, tugging him against the flat, cool, familiar surface of his nightmare chamber. He shakes and screams as the machines are fixed against his head, but the cold-eyed man shushes him.

“Defiance will not be tolerated, Soldier. Disobedience will be punished,” he says, but the Soldier still screams. The man leans closer, voice a low murmur. “He's not coming for you. He's _never_ coming for you.”

They know about the Soldier's concept, and he begins to scream not just in fear and preparation for pain, but in grief and mourning.

 _Goodbye_ , he thinks.

( _If only he'd had the chance to say it before._ )

Agony replaces Steve Rogers.

 

* * *

 

The Soldier is God knows how many years old, and he knows Steve Rogers.

“'Cause I'm with you 'til the end of the line,” he says, and God.

This is him.

This is love.

It's Stevie, _Stevie_ who he has loved when he was Bucky Barnes and loved when he was the Soldier, when he didn't even know who he was loving, he loved him anyway, through it all. Stevie who he stitched up every other Saturday, Stevie who got embarrassed when Bucky pinned his sketches to their bedroom wall, Stevie who he has wanted and wanted and wanted so much he _ached_ , so much he didn't care that his soul was dirty because he got _this_ , and this was a privilege: to look upon Steve Rogers and love. He has been so lucky.

 _'Til the end of the line,_ he hears, and remembers sweltering hot days and hacking coughs, remembers bittersweet loss and rough fabric under his palm, remembers smothering jealousy and alcohol on his breath.

“ _Steve_ ,” he gasps, but it is too late, he has fallen, is falling just like Bucky fell.

With complete abandon.

No, no that's the wrong type of falling, but Bucky is confused, his head is a mess, he hurts, he _aches_ , aches all over. But Steve, that's what he knows. He knows Steve. Knows that Steve's favourite colour was green and that he wet the bed until he was seven and that he went to confession once a month. Knows that whoever Steve is now, he wants to know him. Wants to love him.

Wants to save him.

So he jumps.

Jumps from the flaming helicarrier into the water, searches and searches until he finds Steve, which doesn't really take long because Bucky never looked away from him, and what else is new? Bucky's been looking at Steve his whole life, has been glancing and gazing and taking anything he can get, greedily drinking in all he could, heart dragged kicking and screaming from his sleeve and crushed by his fist.

But this is him.

This is yellow and red and blue, this is that bright and smiling face with all its angles and softness, this is want and dream and ache and summer and all the words he should not know but does, this is his darling Stevie, his _boy_.

His great, and unmatchable love. His love that has lasted and waited for so many years, dormant and hidden in his heart, but existing on. It has reared its pretty head; a built-in trigger more powerful and far older than any trigger Hydra has programmed into him.

The water is cold, but the Soldier knows of cold.

Steve Rogers is cold, but the Soldier remembers his warmth.

The warmth of his hand, small and bony, delicate like a dame's in the palm of a boy who thought he knew what it was to love. The warmth of his thigh against a scared little boy on a couch that sagged in the middle. The warmth of his embrace around a boy who cried and cried like those widows down the hall, preparing for the inevitable break of his heart, the break that had already started happening, really.

He kicks his legs and swims, goes up and up until fresh air hits his skin, and with a yank of his arm, Steve's face breaks through the waves as well.

“C'mon,” he whispers through the water in his mouth, pushing and dragging and hauling until they're both on dry land.

His uniform is saturated, he is soaked to the skin, droplets sticking to his eyelashes and arm, weighing him down as he pulls Steve from the river. It is alright, though. He has always lived with weight on his shoulders. The weight of guilt and love and sin when he was Bucky Barnes. The weight of blood and death and pain when he was the Soldier.

 _Was_ the Soldier.

 _Is_ the soldier?

He is empty. Void. Void of identity. They stripped it from him. Identity- it is the thing everybody has, and they take it for granted.

Identity is nothing until it's gone, and then it is everything.

Identity cannot be reclaimed.

But he still has his senses. Can still see lips wet with blood and eyes purple with bruises, can still smell sweat on soft skin and can still hear laboured, choking breaths, can still taste water in his mouth and can still feel cloth in his hand that he hasn't felt since 1945.

He can still love.

And he does. He does love. It hits him like it did on the Cyclone; amidst screams and laughter and air rushing past his ears he had fallen, fallen headfirst into hating himself and loving Steve. Now, it is the same. He almost forgets the explosions are there, spreading ash and flames around them. Because _he_ is here- Steve, lovely, darling Stevie, he is _here_.

And Bucky, James, the Soldier, whoever he is, remembers. And softens.

He is not the same: war-hardened and tortured, he is not the child that had once melted and blushed when his love smiled at him from across the classroom, grinning and unaware of the effect he was having.

But this is still Steve, his love, so he lingers. Checks he's still breathing, lets his gaze flick over his face. Looks at the extent of the bruising. The bruising _he_ caused. Maybe it was always meant to be like this. He spent so long directing all of that yearning and misery inwards that now he's here, his well-kept secret finally on the outside, affecting Steve, in the way Bucky Barnes had always worried it would.

But Steve is _alive_ , so the Soldier turns, walks away. Because Steve Rogers doesn't deserve this. Doesn't deserve this burden.

With the ever-familiar ache encompassing him, the Soldier limps towards an uncertain future.

 

* * *

 

Bucky Barnes is God knows how many years old, and he belongs to Steve Rogers.

He _loves_ Steve Rogers.

Loves Steve Rogers something fierce. Kept his picture in a notebook, crumpled and stiffened from tears and constant touch, the brush of fingers over a strong jawline and blue eyes. The memories had faded in and out straight after the helicarrier, but they soon began to remain- the Soldier had found a picture of Captain America and remembered the Smithsonian and the bridge and the helicarrier and the Cyclone, and wept. Wept for the phantom taste of blood on his lips where he'd bitten them so hard from wanting. Wept for the embrace of a tiny boy with a warm chest that was missing now he was sad once more.

He had run. Run as far as he could and slept with a thin blanket clutched to his chest, unable to stop _remembering_. The detachment he had felt at seeing Steve's bruises was long gone, and the guilt nearly ate him up, those nights in freezing grubby apartments on shabby mattresses. But Steve had come, rescued him like he always had, like Bucky always knew he would. Bucky had wanted to stay away, had wanted to protect him because this was _Stevie_ , and he remembered enough about this boy that seemed to throw out light in every memory he had, to know that he deserved to be protected.

But Steve wouldn't have it, of course. Was far too stubborn, just like he always had been. They'd been captured, and a whole lot of shit that Bucky doesn't really want to think about went down. But they made their great escape, eventually, and it left Bucky repeating _summer_ and _lips_ and _yellow_ to himself, gave him a new rush of memories of warm hugs and kind smiles that belonged to the loveliest lady Bucky had ever known, and images of old newspapers in tattered shoes.

And then Steve had kissed _her_. Blondie. Carter II. Whoever she was. It had made Bucky remember that special kind of hate, that hate that isn't really deserved but is felt anyway, interspersed with bitterness and envy and want, hidden by forced smiles and fake pride. So Bucky had fought, fought because _Steve_ was fighting, and he had remembered. Remembered to the point where he was sure he had pieced it all together, that life, the life of James Buchanan Barnes.

Until the video.

And then Bucky had remembered the life of the Soldier.

Not just little snippets, not fragments of hollowed screams and splashes of blood, not just haunting memories with the knowledge of what he'd done, but every single damn second of pain he had inflicted on others and had felt inflicted on himself. He had almost wanted to give up, to let Stark kill him- he deserved it, after all. But Steve… Steve had wanted him to _live_.

Bucky Barnes would, and will, until his end of days, do absolutely anything to make Steve Rogers happy. And so here he is.

He limps towards that same uncertain future again, but this time, supported by Steve, the sound of the metal shield hitting the floor still ringing in his ears. He is alive. Fucked up beyond belief, but alive. And so is Steve.

His Steve. That sweet little kid that had made Bucky love so much he was sick with it, that beautiful boy who had a heart of gold and charcoal stuck under his fingernails. But really, those things are still true. Still happening. Bucky still wakes up in the middle of the night, choking on his love and fear, and Steve is still just as beautiful as he's always been, still has the purest heart Bucky has ever known.

“Stevie,” he mumbles, as they drag each other's dead weight out of the compound. “Stevie,” he says again, more urgent, more panicked, and Steve freezes.

“Bucky?” He asks, voice just as unclear as Bucky's, spoken through blood coating his mouth. “What's wrong?”

“Stevie,” he repeats, and shifts his mouth towards Steve's ear. “You're a punk,” he whispers, and Steve _laughs_ , and it's loud and bright and still the most gorgeous sound in the universe.

“ _Jerk_ ,” he retaliates, and this is the happiest Bucky has been in _years_ , in the two years he's spent on the run and the seventy years he spent as the Soldier. “You had me worried,” Steve says, and Bucky is sure the hand supporting his back is suddenly pressing just one finger against his shoulder-blade, and Bucky is sure he can figure out which one.

“Well ain't that a shame,” he teases, and Steve huffs.

“Forgot how much you know how to piss a guy off,” he says, feigning annoyance, but Bucky knows. He knows Steve Rogers. And he knows Steve is utterly overjoyed that Bucky is just being _Bucky_ , just fucking around with him in the way that they always used to, just being his arrogant best friend, the guy who used to smooth-talk any girl that wandered through their neighbourhood and joke around with the guys at the docks, but would drop any of that in a second to come back home to Steve.

But Bucky is not _that_ Bucky anymore.

He is still _Steve's_ Bucky, just not the Bucky that he was viewed as. That Bucky was confident and cocksure, not the _real_ Bucky, the boy who kept every single one of Steve's sketches he was given and used shake and sweat whenever Steve was in his vicinity. Steve never saw that side of him, and it's mostly down to Bucky not letting him, but it's honestly amusing how he's about as perceptive as a brick when it comes to his own best friend.

“Oh, cry me a river, Rogers. Like you never pissed anyone off,” Bucky reminds, thinking of back-alleys and bruises and blood.

Through the curtain of his hair he sees Steve open his mouth to reply, but they both freeze a moment later, before any more words can be spoken. There is an undeniable shift in the air, the addition of tension that cannot be ignored, and it can only mean one thing- another person. They pivot slowly, still wounded but rapidly healing, and turn to see the Panther, unmasked with his hands up in surrender.

“Captain,” he greets, with a nod, and looks at Bucky. “Soldier.”

“I'm not a soldier,” he says, and he means it. Addressing him by that title is too much too soon.

“Apologies.”

“Listen, what do you _want?_ ” Steve asks, tired but viciously defensive, his hand tightening on Bucky's back. “Are you here to finish us off?”

 _Us_. The Panther had never been after Steve in the first place. But here Steve is, sticking himself to Bucky's side and letting himself be dragged down with him. It makes Bucky think of every time he caught himself looking at Steve a little too long, and hating himself for damning this poor boy to Hell as well. Well here Stevie is, going willingly.

“No,” the Panther says. “I am here to make amends.” He inclines his head to the right. “The man you want, he is over there. I used his phone to contact the men at the facility, and they are currently on their way. He will be imprisoned for his crimes.”

“You didn't kill him?” Bucky asks, far too familiar with nearly being killed by a man he only encountered a few days ago.

“No,” the Panther admits, faced filled with bitter regret. “Because I understand now. I nearly let revenge consume me, and subsequently almost killed the wrong man. I was almost too far. It was wrong of me. So, _so_ wrong of me.” He takes a slow step closer to them, head bowed. “I will not ask for forgiveness. I perhaps do not deserve it. But I will ask for you to let me help you.”

“How?” Steve questions desperately, and Bucky realises what it means to have the men from the facility on their way here.

They need help. And they need it _now_.

“Wakanda,” the Panther suggests. “My home. It is far away from here, and you will be safe there. Both of you. I offer you sanctuary, if you want it.”

“Thank you,” Steve says. “We just need to make one stop first.”

 _Sam_ , Bucky thinks, and isn't sure whether he should be jealous or not. Sam and Steve's relationship had basically looked like a platonic version of him and Steve. Bucky hopes he doesn't get replaced. He isn't worried about the rest of them, none of them had really seemed _close_ to Steve. The Witch had been, perhaps. Or the Widow. Although not like _that_. Bucky can tell when Steve wants a dame or not, and the way he was around Peggy Carter and Blonde Carter was not the same, was different to that aura of genuine tender fondness he had exuded around the Widow and the Witch. It resembled the way he had been with Becca, who had _adored_ Steve, adored him for the way he doted on her and always gave her his leftover potatoes at Sunday dinner.

Oh god, _Becca_.

His _girl_ , his little sister with her wicked sense of humour and loud snoring. She's gone, now. Must be. He chokes back tears as the Panther holds them up, hauling them through the snow. His heart may give out from loss, he thinks.

He has lost everyone, and everything.

Except Steve.

 

* * *

 

Bucky Barnes is thirty-two years old, and he is with Steve Rogers.

Constantly.

It is the terrifying mix of everything he has ever wanted and everything he has ever feared. He is free, now. But is dragged down by the weight of his feelings for Steve, can't even leave a damn room without having to ignore the feel of blue eyes on him. Which is something he always imagined he'd revel in, but now, not so much. He feels scrutinised and picked apart, repeatedly checked on by Steve or T'Challa or even _Sam_ , who Bucky knows full well doesn't agree with babying him.

He has been lucky, he thinks, to have these three. He had panicked, at first, when they had arrived in Wakanda at first light. “Daybreak,” T'Challa had breathed, seemingly more peaceful now they were at his home, but Bucky had _twitched_.

_Рассвет._

_F_ _uck,_ he'd thought. Insisted to them on cryofreeze, which had been given as an option. None of them had agreed, however.

“Please don't, Buck,” Steve had begged.

“No need to overreact now, Barnes,” Sam had said.

“You will be safe,” T'Challa had assured, the only one with anything convincing, productive or helpful to say. “Cryofreeze is an unnecessary measure. Nobody will be able to reach you here, and even in the impossible circumstance that they did, we are more than equipped to deal with them. You would be easily subdued if you ever… lost control.”

“I don't want to hurt anyone else,” Bucky had replied, and received a soft smile.

“And you won't. But I will not stop you from doing what you feel you need to. If this will give you peace, then you are more than welcome to it. I shall inform you, however, that Wakanda is probably the safest place for you to be awake at this current moment. It is the place you are least likely to harm innocents, if that is your main worry.”

Bucky had felt slightly swayed. He _could_ stay awake, if he wanted. Maybe. But one look at Steve's hopeful face, the fear in the crease of his brow and set determination in the straight line of his mouth, the mouth that Bucky had memorised the shape of a thousand times, had made his decision for him immediately. Steve would've allowed him the dignity of his choice no matter what, but that hadn't meant he didn't have a preference.

“I'll stay out,” Bucky had said, for Steve. “I'll stay awake.”

And so three rooms had been allocated for them, which soon became two after Steve had heard him screaming at night and crawled into the bed next to him. It was that beautiful agony Bucky was used to, being close enough to touch him, _actually_ touching him, but not having it really received, not having it understood. It's been like that every single night since they got here.

Bucky feels like he's eighteen again, lying next to Steve Rogers and contemplating sewing his mouth shut so he doesn't spill his secrets in his sleep. Secrets that have very nearly been the death of him really, secrets that have made his hands ache to touch and his heart tumble in his chest, secrets that have been a stabbing pain in his stomach since before he knew what the word meant. What a tragic irony it would be, those secrets that have kept him up at night and spun him dreams made of silk lined with silver, how tragic it would be for them to rip him open at night, lay him bare and exposed in front of the very person whom he has attempted to hide so much from. How tragic that would be.

How typical.

Because Bucky Barnes knows far too much of tragedy.

So he shuts up. This is not the pining teenager who couldn't go a day without speaking before Steve worried, this is the man who used to be the Soldier, the man who has been silent far too long to quit it now, and Steve sees. Sees when Bucky is too overwhelmed to be with people, backs away slowly after giving him a comforting pat on the arm, leaves him in peace. And honestly, sometimes Steve is right. Sometimes it _is_ because of the memories, choking him with guilt. But sometimes it isn't. Sometimes he's overwhelmed because of _Steve_ , because this is Steve _near_ him, next to him, _with_ him. And it is not in the way he wants. He is not equipped to carry the burden of his longing like he once was, and it scares him.

He worries that Steve will find out. Worries himself sick. Worries just as much as he used to, if not more. Bucky loves so truly and so deeply, and Steve's hands would blister with the weight of it. He can _never_ know.

“You do not have to hide it, you know,” T says to him one day, approaching him after he's had his new prosthetic checked out. T'Challa is _T_ now, had become T not a week after they had got to Wakanda. To his dismay, Bucky loves using it. “We are separate from the rest of the world here.”

“What do you mean?” Bucky asks.

“We do not discriminate in Wakanda,” T explains. “Homophobia is not tolerated here. You and your Captain are welcome to be open.”

“Stevie ain't like that,” Bucky says, and it comes quicker than he expected. He supposes even after all those years as the Soldier, this is something that he learned to deny a very long time ago.

T nods in understanding, considering him. “But you are,” he suggests, and Bucky stares at his feet, too ashamed to meet T's eyes. “It is okay, you know,” he assures. “There's nothing wrong with it.”

_It is okay._

If only someone had told Bucky that when he was fourteen and sick with guilt and sin, igniting violence inside himself for doing something as peaceful as _loving_. God and sinning seems insignificant now, after he has been the hand behind death, after he has snuffed out human life and watched it drain before his very eyes. _That_ was the sin. Not love. He wasted so long tearing himself up inside for wanting Steve, and maybe all that self-loathing was an indicator of the monster he would one day become. Or maybe it wasn't.

Either way, Bucky being unable to resist a challenge and therefore helping out some stupid little kid with a short temper was both the best and worst thing to ever happen to him. Steve Rogers has taken him to death row and back, caused him incomparable amounts of pain in the nine or so decades that they have been orbiting each other, one day bound to collide.

And Bucky wouldn't change a damn thing.

 

* * *

 

Bucky Barnes is thirty-two years old, and he craves Steve Rogers.

He craves him in every way imaginable. It feels as if he's been going through puberty again over the last few months, finding his footing after stumbling for so long. Recovery is on the table here, and so is redemption, however much everyone argues that he doesn't need redeeming. Things are falling back into place, and his dick has finally caught up with his heart.

It's different, though. All of the old fantasies come rushing back the first time he presses a hand against his crotch, but he has to go through the long and laborious process of replacing skinny legs wrapped around his waist with muscular calves and thick thighs, and switching bony fingers and thin arms for bulging biceps and strong fists. It's not _bad_ , per se, just _different_. Harder to get used to. But Bucky is used to change by now.

He distracts himself, just like he always did. He used to bite his lips raw and bury himself in comic books. Now he reads up on the internet, and everything that has happened (or that he has caused) over the last seventy years. Surprisingly enough, it doesn't interest him all that much, out here in Wakanda, cut off from the world. Instead, he finds himself reading ancient history and falling in love with the _Greeks_ of all people, finds himself relating to Icarus and his all-encompassing love for the sun, love that shone so brightly it bordered on obsession, and he can't help but understand how Achilles must've felt with that especially tender soft spot. He drinks these stories up hungrily, these burning tales of victory and survival and pride, sagas that are almost as epic as what he and Steve have shared. But nothing compares to the real thing, not really, and the awe and wonder that gushes through him at those myths only increases when Steve climbs into bed next to him, soft and real and human.

There.

Bucky has loved him so long.

It is a part of him now. A natural reflex. Something he will store in his heart until his end of days, whether they end in a blaze of glory or just a whimper. He hopes for neither.

He hopes they end in a smile.

He tries to write this down, but the shape of the pen in his hand just doesn't _fit_ and the paper feels all wrong and the words just aren't _there_.

“How you doing, man?” Sam asks, strolling up behind him, crunching through the undergrowth.

“Terrible,” Bucky answers with a scowl. “I just can't seem to...”

“To get the words out?” Sam prompts, and sighs when Bucky nods. He sinks down to sit beside him, back pressed against the large tree trunk, and friendly, he knocks Bucky with his shoulder. “It's okay. We've all been there. I did a _lot_ of work with people with PTSD and let me tell you, their coping mechanisms usually stop working because they're trying _too_ hard. Pushing themselves, really. You just gotta let it come to you.”

“Well it _won't!_ ” Bucky exclaims, petulant and frustrated.

“Bucky, hey, _Bucky_ ,” Sam says, hand shooting out to steady him. “It's _okay_. Just… try something different. You write, right? You write all your memories down so you don't forget them? Try a different format, maybe. Write it like a letter.”

“To myself?”

“To whoever you want. Whoever makes you feel safe. Write it however you want, it's just a suggestion. I'm just saying, you're _changing_ , Bucky. All the time. You can't expect your coping mechanisms to stay exactly the same. Don't get upset with yourself. You're only human.”

 _I was a machine, once,_ he thinks, and gets hit by them again; the memories of emptiness and his hands clutching a gun. He nods at Sam, thanks him, and watches as he leaves, to 'teach T how to make hot chocolate.' Bucky smiles at his retreating back, and leans over the paper, a furrow in his forehead and inspiration flowing in his veins.

 _Dear Steve Rogers_ , he writes, and forgets about the rest of the world.

The pen fits in his hand, the paper is right, the words are there.

There for _Steve_. Just like every single part of Bucky is. Even this part, this ugly, damaged mess of a part that has PTSD and night terrors and hundreds upon hundreds of triggers. He doesn't understand why he's _wanted_ , not when he's like _this_. But he'll take what he can get, just like he always did, always has, and clings onto his memories of Steve for dear life.

He hates. He loves. He writes about what he hates and he writes about what he loves, which is just a litany of himself and Stevie, respectively. He writes until his hands ache (when didn't they?) and his pen runs out of ink, and looks down at his endless scrawling of _I love you_ and _I hate me_ and _since always, darling,_ and cries. Cries for two broken Brooklyn boys, lost to the cruel and unforgiving hands of time. Oh, how far they have come.

How far they have fallen.

Bucky misses the simplicity of it all. Of love and want and sin. Of summer and winter and illness and health. Of living- mundane, real, _living_. It was shitty, sometimes. A lot of the time, actually. But Bucky had known where he stood and had known who he was. He was the fool who was in love with Steve Rogers, the fool who had his heart on demand, waiting, ready for his best friend to wake up and notice the lovesick idiot sat beside him. But Steve had walked through their friendship half-asleep.

Bucky rests his head back against the tree and _weeps_ , heart clenching and body too big for his bones, too big for that scared little boy who wanted and wanted until it hurt.

He didn't deserve that Hell.

Perhaps this is Purgatory.

Nostalgia consuming him, Bucky wipes the evidence of his despair from his cheeks and smooths out the paper he had scribbled on, slides it into his notebook and hides it in the foliage. Nobody comes out here, so nobody will find it. This is his spot and his alone, somewhere he can cry and remember and write. It makes him feel safe. It helps him remember.

Words give him footing.

He thinks about all of them later, sitting on the bed next to Steve, watching as his rough hands sketch the beautiful scenery out here in Wakanda.

“You okay, Buck?” Steve asks, glancing up from his sketchbook, somehow able to tell he's preoccupied.

“Fine,” he mumbles, love blooming fresh and new in his chest, just like it does every time Steve opens his mouth to talk. He stares down at his bitten fingernails, picks at a broken strip of skin by his thumbnail, watching as a bead of blood grows larger there, smudging against his tough and roughened skin.

“You can talk to me. About anything. You know that, right?” Steve places a hand on his arm, granting him a sweet smile, one that provokes memories of summer heat and eyes made of stardust to flash through Bucky's mind. “I love you, pal,” he reassures.

Bucky's heart gives a painful thump as Steve turns back to his drawing. “I love you too,” he breathes, _too_ breathy, and Steve's head shoots up, a frown plastered on his face.

 _Teasing camaraderie_. That was the way they'd always said it. Bucky _forgot_.

“Buck?” Steve prompts, likely noticing the green tinge he must have to his face. All these fucking measures he's been taking his _whole life_ , and _this_ is where he loses it? Steve drops his pencil, shifting to face him on the bed, shock evident but realisation dawning in his expression. “Wait- do you...”

“I'm sorry,” Bucky blurts out, a wretched and tortured sob escaping the confines of his throat. “I didn't mean to. I _never_ meant to. I… _fuck_...”

“Never meant to _what?_ To… love me?”

“To _fall_ in love with you,” he spits, scrambling backwards off the bed, some horrible kind of pain settling in his lungs, choking him as he attempts to gasp in air. Stevie knows, he _knows_. Knows all of Bucky's terrible, terrible secrets. Knows about his want. “It was an accident. I'm sorry, Stevie, I'm so, so sorry, I'll just go, I'll-”

“ _Bucky!_ ” He's broken out of his panic momentarily, surprised by a tone in Steve's voice that he's rarely heard directed at him. Steve looks wild and panicked, bedsheets clasped beneath his hands, knuckles turning white. “Hey, come _on_. Sit _down_. _Talk_ to me. Don't _leave_.”

“Talk to you about _what?_ ” He snaps, but stops scrambling, pauses.

“About how you apparently _love_ me,” Steve says, and his voice is kind, _too_ kind, and tears rush to Bucky's eyes like he's a lonely teenager again. “Are _in love_ with me. Whatever you wanna call it. Buck, I'm your _best friend_. What are you so afraid of? Is it rejection? Because I can tell you right now not to worry about that.”

“What,” Bucky says, brain catching up with his ears as he attempts to process the words.

“I feel the same,” Steve admits, swallowing nervously, and Bucky creeps back toward the bed, curious and hooked. “I've been in love with you since I was _twenty_ , for God's sake.”

“I got you beat there, pal.” Sinking down on the bed again, he leans towards Steve, nervous and trembling, mouth dry. “Remember when I made you ride the Cyclone at Coney Island?”

Steve's mouth quirks, mind obviously flitting back to the last time Bucky said that. "Yeah and I threw up?" Another time, another place. Another lifetime. 

"I've been sweet on you since then," he whispers.

“ _Coney Island?_ ” Steve repeats, mouth wide open in shock. “That was… what, _'29?_ I was _eleven_.”

“And I was twelve,” Bucky finishes. “You throwing up afterwards still didn't put me off, believe it or not.” Steve chuckles, shaking his head at Bucky and opening his mouth to tease back, presumably, but Bucky cuts him off, desperate for his questions to be answered. “Peggy Carter,” he says, and Steve huffs. “You loved her.”

“Yeah, I loved her. And I also loved you.”

Pleasure spreads in Bucky's stomach, prompting butterflies and cartwheels he hasn't felt since he was twenty-eight years old. “Well, what about the other one?” He asks, trying to ignore the heady happiness attempting to strangle his senses. “The one you kissed right in front of me.”

“Oh. Her.” Steve looks sheepish, chewing on his lip. “She wanted me to, I could tell. And I just… felt bad. She'd done so much to help us and we had nothing to give her. We owed her, really. I just kinda…”

“Gave her what she wanted.”

“Yeah.” Steve tilts his head, considers him with those pretty blue eyes. “But what about you? You always had a dame on your arm.”

He lets out a sharp, derisive snort. “What, that string of pretty blondes I dated? The ones who wore red lipstick and had blue eyes?” Steve blinks, seemingly connecting the dots in his head. “Yeah, they meant a whole lot to me.”

“Jesus, Bucky, you could've just _told_ me,” he berates, gazing at him pityingly. “This whole time, huh?”

“Yeah,” he confesses. “You used to drive me crazy. Still do.”

“Well, me too. What a nice coincidence,” Steve teases, affection radiating from him as he beams at Bucky, the same kind of affection Bucky feels around _him_ and _oh_.

“You _love_ me,” Bucky realises, and thinks about it real hard. Remembers back then, the way Steve had begun meeting his eyes after he'd caught Bucky staring too long, how Steve had started becoming just as tactile as _Bucky_ , remembers more smiles and more sketches. He hadn't thought much of it, at the time. Which is a lie, of course- he'd thought about it _constantly_ , noticed all of the tiny changes in Steve's behaviour because of how attuned to him he was, still _is_. But he hadn't _realised_ , had been so resigned to the fact that Steve would never love him back that he didn't see when he actually _did_.

“And you love me,” Steve states.

Bucky nods fervently, and yanks Steve in by the lapels, shoving their mouths together in the way he always dreamed. His breath catches in his throat and Steve kisses him _back_ , hand coming round to rest on his waist, as though to steady him as he leans precariously into Steve's personal space, from where he's balanced on the side of the bed, threatening to topple them over.

He aches.

But kind of in a good way, now. He aches with the actual knowledge that Steve's lips are just as soft as he imagined, and that biting them _does_ tear the broken skin and make them bleed, makes his lips look as they did the first time Bucky saw them, wet with blood. Steve tastes like victory and survival and _home_ , and Bucky loves him _properly_ again, loves him like he was always _supposed_ to: unconditionally, effortlessly, and with complete abandon.

Giddy, he gathers Stevie closer, winding his hands in hair that is yellow like straw and sobbing into his mouth, heart tearing open at the seams. This is everything he has ever wanted. Steve Rogers- that little boy who could cause Bucky sin and war and pain, his guiding star, the centre of his universe, the light of his life.

_Steve Rogers._

If this is Purgatory then Bucky isn't complaining. He will stay here forever, happily, fulfilling the commitment he made to a boy with a _something_ that tugged his heart. That something had actually been goodness, goodness in its purest and rawest form, crystallised and preserved in a boy that might just make the world go round. Goodness shining in a boy that half-lived in back-alleys with endless black eyes and bruised knuckles, a glaring beacon of hope that touched the world but reached Bucky Barnes _first_.

That sweet and simple kid with bloody lips.

“I love you,” he gasps, through kisses and tears. “I'll always love you. 'Til the end of the line.”

“Til the end of the line,” Steve repeats, voice breaking, and that's it, Bucky Barnes can die happy now.

He has lived for almost a century. He has not lived a moment where he hasn't loved Steve Rogers. Even before they knew each other, even while he was the Soldier, he _loved_ , loved someone who wasn't there but was coming for him one day, someone who was getting there as fast as he could.

He is here now.

 

* * *

 

Bucky Barnes is thirty-two years old, and so is Steve Rogers.

Funny, how Steve caught up in age. Bucky always used to tease him about being younger.

Funny, how long they have lived. How far they've come. How far Bucky has come to still have his entire life defined and shaped by his love for Steve Rogers. His life: one big, broken mess of blood, bruises and want. Sometimes funny, sometimes tragic. But despite it all, it has a happy ending.

Just like every good love story.

**Author's Note:**

> ha you thought because of the title this would end angsty? well fuck you I made them happy
> 
> come yell at me on [tumblr](http://savethealiens.tumblr.com) about how in love these two are
> 
> the russian in this is from google translate so its super sketchy and if you don't want to copy and paste it yourself it's basically just like 'mission report' and 'ready to comply' and bucky's trigger words (ouch)
> 
> anyways this is just a huge projection because steve rogers is literally my heart and soul so i'd like to formally apologise to bucky barnes for torturing him in this way, but cacw fucked me up so what can you do…. but no, seriously, this couple means a lot to me and feedback would be greatly appreciated because I kind of adore these two
> 
> also the title is from a gr8 song so please listen to [golden days by panic! at the disco](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooEv1cH97HA) (or re-listen you emo fucks) and apply it to stucky because wow


End file.
